This Never Ends Well
by Manchester
Summary: Regarding the warning of the above title, if she'd actually been told this by someone else in the Scooby Gang before making a wish, Cordelia Chase would have haughtily declared, "It will when I do it!"


Three hours into the whole affair, Throll'dy the wish-granting demon was trying not to fall asleep on his feet. The young human female who'd earlier summoned him now paused in her recitation from the massive stack of paper resting upon her sitting room desk to shortly glare at the swaying, red-scaled fiend. Giving an arrogant sniff, Cordelia Chase then returned to listing the ideal qualifications of her future husband: "-human, from this time period, wealthy beyond anyone's dreams of avarice, absolutely devoted to me, fit and healthy, brave, handsome, intelligent, and he can't be older than me! I'm not going to do a repeat of the Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall episode!"

Blinking as the demon realized that he could finally talk now, Throll'dy politely cleared his throat to then point out, "Miss Chase, that latter condition could make granting your wish somewhat problematical. Most moneyed males who otherwise meet your qualifications are rather advanced in age. Would you agree to a certain cut-off point in time where candidates are no longer considered? Say, perhaps…twenty-five years beyond your own current age?"

"Not on your life!" Cordelia instantly declared, adding in her normal condescending tone towards any minion in her vicinity having to at once carry out their instructed task, no matter how difficult it was, "It's _your_ problem, not mine, in finding someone who perfectly matches my wish! So, just get on with it!"

Grinding his fangs, Throll'dy still managed to choke out to a person he was really starting to dislike, "Listen, you've got to leave me some room for negotiation! How about twenty years older than you?"

"No!"

"Fifteen?"

A calculating look flashed over Cordelia's beautiful face for a moment, until she made her counter-offer: "Ten years, and not a day more!"

This time, it was Throll'dy who adamantly shook his head. "I can do twelve years, nothing less! Besides, by the time a guy's hit thirty, they've usually finished sowing their wild oats and are ready to settle down with a wife. Take it or-"

Interrupting in a very thoughtful tone, Cordelia came out with, "Thanks for reminding me! I _knew_ I'd forgotten something. So, I'm adding to my wish: my future husband has to be a virgin."

"ARE YOU INSANE?" screamed Throll'dy, staring in shock at the smug eighteen-year-old girl before himself. Beginning to gibber, the demon started off by spluttering, "Do you know how hard that's going to make things?"

Raising a flawless eyebrow, Cordelia sneered back, "Like I care! Are you saying you can't do it? Because if that's the case, then according to what the magic scroll told me, that I found to get you here, as a result of your failure, I get _three_ more wishes free of charge!"

Throwing up his clawed hands in utter frustration, Throll'dy grumbled to himself under his breath, "One guy in thousands of years gets lucky, and that's all everyone remembers, the three wishes story! You've got no idea how many people yell at me when they hear it's normally just one wish to a customer!"

"I'm waaaaaiting," Cordelia sardonically crooned to the simmering demon.

Glowering at the smirking female, Throll'dy frantically thought about what had been demanded of himself, until at last, the dimensional monster's shoulders slumped in defeat. Waving a forlorn hand at the stack of papers that held the husbandly qualifications, Throll'dy muttered in his most sullen tone, "Fine, then, but it's part of the bargain that I have to give you one more chance: do you want to back out, or make any more changes to your wish?"

Cordelia Chase suspiciously examined the demon before herself. She was confident enough that what she'd written covered everything without providing any loopholes which would allow Throll'dy to cheat in the wish. After all, the daughter of the most affluent family in Sunnydale had been idly thinking about it ever since kindergarten, how to marry the right guy, but Cordelia got actually serious about it the very first moment she learned the supernatural really existed, and magic wishes were indeed part of this. It was true that she had to come up with every possible contingency all on her own that would get her the most perfect husband ever, since asking for advice from the Scooby Gang or even the law firm her daddy had on retainer, some boring name like Wolfard and Harper, wouldn't have been wise.

Still, she'd eventually managed to summon a demon that could bestow upon Cordelia Chase her deepest desire. More to the point, that really ugly guy over there was apparently going to have to go through with it, granting her wish, considering how unhappy he now looked over Cordelia outwitting him. Allowing herself a victorious grin, Cordelia imperiously declared, "That's my wish, and I'm ordering you to carry it out!"

Maintaining an absolutely perfect deadpan, Throll'dy clapped his hands together, while gravely intoning, "Wish granted!" Right after that, the demon vanished from the Chase mansion, traveling back to his own dimension, whereupon that fiend collapsed to the ground, wrapping his arms around himself, to spend the next few minutes howling with laughter at the top of his lungs.

Back at her home, Cordelia eagerly looked around the sitting room, expecting to see her new husband right then and there. However, there seemed to be nobody at all besides herself sharing the-

"Darling!"

The teenage girl recoiled back in her chair at hearing the high-pitched voice seemingly speaking to herself out of nowhere. On second thought, it sounded like it'd been coming directly straight ahead from Cordelia. As a result, the high-school student warily leaned forward, until she could see over the far edge of her desk.

Standing there, all three feet of him, a cute little boy with slicked-down blonde hair parted in the center, and wearing a black waistcoat with a white shirt and a large red bow tie, plus blue shorts, now beamed at his dearest wife, all while happily telling this beautiful lady he'd somehow wed in the last two seconds: "Don't worry about our married life together forever, Mrs. Rich. Just keep in mind that according to the old saying, big things come in small packages!"

As she stared with horror at a seven-year-old multi-billionaire known by his family as Richie Rich, Cordelia could only despairingly think of the fact that she'd never put down in her list the simple requirement that her new husband couldn't be _younger _than herself. Much less a decade or more younger, as just produced by her granted wish.

Allowing her head to fall face forward onto the surface of her desk, Cordelia mentally groaned to herself at not only how much trouble she was now in, but also in the next minute or so, that sickeningly-sweet kid over there was surely going to say something like how much he loved an older woman.


End file.
